DOES Stonebow House deserve “a new lease of life”?

We unfortunately live in a throwaway society: if it does not suit, we throw it away. That sometimes also applies to buildings. I was at the Stonebow House Inquiry recently with over 50 other people, and from 11am until gone 3pm we discussed the pros and cons of Stonebow House. And though the majority considered it to be an “ugly” building of a now-disappeared era, very few people actually wanted to pull it down. The reasons were many, but one that kept resurfacing was “as long as the building was structurally sound, why destroy it?”.

This is good environmental sense. We recycle our waste paper, plastic, glass, metal, so why not buildings? There are three provisos. One, the building has to be deemed structurally safe. Two, its future use should be in keeping with the needs of the community, like affordable housing. And three, it should be economically viable. I moved to York in 1986, and since then most of the tower has remained empty office space; let’s look at alternative uses. I know that there are two music venues on the ground floor, but I am sure that we now have the technology to constrain noise?

Finally, the debate regarding Stonebow House should be open and inclusive: the city can’t afford another costly and divisive Coppergate 2 débâcle.

Gordon Campbell-Thomas, York Sustainable Development Project, Grosvenor Terrace, York